Agriculture Development Strategy to 2025 and Vision to 2030.

The Agriculture Development Strategy to 2025 and Vision to 2030 is a strategic instrument with a multi-sectoral approach which aims to ensure food security, produce comparative and competitive agricultural commodities, develop clean, safe and sustainable agriculture and shift gradually to the modernization of a resilient and productive agriculture economy linking with rural development contributing to the national economic basis. The Agriculture Development Strategy to the year 2025 and Vision to the year 2030 has been formulated in line with the direction, policy and guidelines of the Party and National Social-Economic Development Plan of the Government in each period and has been developed based on the actual situation, conditions, characteristics and potential of the Lao PDR and also in line with the regional and international growth, especially the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs). Its formulation is based on, among others, the National Food Security Strategy and Agriculture and Forestry Development Plan to the year 2010, the Forestry Strategy to the year 2020 and the National Growth and Poverty Eradication Strategy (NGPES).
The instrument aims to help eliminate hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition. Goal 1 of the strategy concerns food production. The specific objective is to ensure nutrition of people to get energy of at least 2,600 Kilocalories per person per day. The measures foreseen in this strategy encompass the following aspects related to food security: food stability, food preservation and nutrition knowledge.
Further, the document aims to make agriculture, forestry and fisheries more productive and sustainable. One of the overall goals is ensuring that agriculture production is in line with sanitary principles, clean, safe for producers and consumers health and environmentally friendly. Goal 2 concerns agricultural commodity production.
The strategy also aims at reducing rural poverty, particularly through the creation of employment in the agricultural sector.
Another objective is to enable more inclusive and efficient agricultural and food systems. The vision is that agriculture production contributes in many aspects such as creation of employment, income generation for people, reduction of gap between cities and rural areas, construction new rural areas along side with the protection of symbolic cultures of all ethnic people, environmental protection and contribute to stability and balance of ecological system. As mentioned, goal 2 concerns agricultural commodity production. The objective is to make best efforts to make agricultural commodities production grown to create basic factors for industrialization and modernization gradually, ensuring both quantity and quality aiming at accessing domestic, regional and international markets in connection with the improvement of farmer’s group, producer’s and agriculture processing association.
Regarding the resilience of livelihoods to disasters, the strategy recognizes the link between climate change and food security. It outlines measures and actions to ensure high potential livestock breeding improvement research project including native and gross breed cattle for increasing productivity, improve quality and higher resistent to the diseases and climate change.
Regarding governance, the strategy aims to increase coordination between the agriculture and forestry sector and relevant sectors including industry and commerce, finance, banking, public works and transportation, natural resources and environment, rural development, planning and investment, justice and other sectors aiming at the determination of policies, strategies, programmes including legislation of these sectors integrated and consistent in order to support and promote food production process and agricultural goods production to grow. Moreover the strategy boosts the improvement of coordination between the Government, producers and entrepreneurs.